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GOP IWD Session 1 - Academic resistance

Introductory session for the International Women's Day (IWD) panel discussion with: Marianna Fotaki, Jeff Hearn, Emmanouela Mandalaki, Mie Plotnikof, Cinzia Priola, Alison Pullen, Nela Smolović Jones, Melissa Tyler and Alice Wickström. Academic spaces and outlets, as bastions of critical thought, are increasingly becoming coopted into the mainstream, fortifying the neoliberal status quo. In such an environment accounting for and amplifying democratic struggles on the ground becomes almost impossible. The commodification of academic outlets, such as journals, especially those established to enhance equalities, has become a commonplace strategy for taming our resistances and quashing our voices. In this IWD mini conference we will explore these developments from a gendered perspective with a range of wonderful speakers, many of whom have been engaging in activist endeavours, in academia and in broader society, for many years. The conference will open with a panel discussion on the ethical responsibility of nurturing and protecting critical voices in academia.

The Open University Business School

2 days ago
okay um welcome all to another International women's day conference organized by GOP the gendered organizational practice research cluster International women's day um is that time of year when we collectively reflect on the progress made in advancing gender equality so taking stock of achievements to celebrate as well as formulating new demands for the Times ahead right and I would normally begin uh by wishing us all a very happy International women's day but I'm not sure I can do this year wit
h the same degree of enthusiasm but hopefully by the end of the conference we'll be able to master optimism so in the past several years uh hope for equality has been as you well known severely undermined which Shades that Shades this conference um in from go solidarity goes to all those people who have been invaded um is is becoming increasingly evident that we are experiencing some of the biggest setbacks to gender equality in decades unsurprisingly the spaces in which we can critically evalua
te these developments where we can regroup replenish and set parameters for activism have been increasingly under attack but despite the losses despite the setbacks and hardships and again such a for boarding landscape the inclusive Progressive feminist Community prevails and with it the hope for a better future this year's conference is named voice and protest to signal that which is a thorn in the eye of the retrograde uh corrosive powers that seek to erect ever steeper hierarchies and that wh
ich is the the strength of our movement strength of our activism voice and protest so we open this conference with a panel discussion exploring academic resistance to the corrosive forces that threaten gendering equality we will assess the state of critical thinking and Publishing we will examine the blind spots and ET Avenues hopefully for ensuring ensuring academic independence from corporate influences the recent Mass resignation of editorial boards in the journal such as gender work in organ
ization which took place yesterday Theory and Society uh Journal of political philosophy and elsewhere will serve as a as a spring board for such a discussion I see so many people LinkedIn and I have a house full of feminists from all over the world from Italy from Wales from monegro so many of lovely uh uh feminists on on my screen too and the poster you can see behind me is is a gift and a work of an um uh art art well work of art of a wonderful artist and a fellow feminist from women's rights
Center in Montenegro called Tanya marush um and uh I think it kind of frames this uh uh the the theme is Justice and um and it features a lovely Queen TAA of of Montenegro back in the day yian Queen pardon me uh who was um well uh proclaimed a pirate but she was yes a queen of of Adriatic Sea um so uh I will now turn to my panel um for all of us are former members of of the gender working organizations editorial board uh including myself uh we are in lovely company of Mariana futaki Jeff hn Emm
anuela mandalaki Mia plotnikov chinia priola Alis pulan Melissa Tyler and Alice Wickstrom uh welcome everyone and I think uh uh it's lovely to see you here I know you must be really tired uh but let's kick off this with the kind of a bit of a broader question so how do you perceive the current state of critical thought in light of situation where journals can be at the mercy of Publishers and where academics be in their capacity as editors or reviewers uh or authors um provide free labor but whe
re Publishers can retain power over governance structures and procedures so my question is can critical thinking survive in such circumstances who would like to kick off Allison would you like to uh start considering you were previous Editor in Chief of gender work in organization thanks Nill and um it was the greatest privilege uh to be the editor of uh a critical gender Journal working with you all for so many years and it comes as a as a great shock to me actually and I hadn't realized what a
what a shock it was until I saw all your faces here today and I remember the times when we used to do things collectively so forgive me that I'm in uh in shock uh it comes as a surprise because um as editor of uh gender work and organization the relationship with uh the publisher was always one of collaboration and that changed very very quickly and uh it changed I think quickly because of increasing managerialism uh a strategy of uh rampant and growth uh uh lack of investment which means uh lo
wering of uh of standards and um also that uh when you see uh as a publisher as a commercial publisher when you see a high rejection rate you see that that as an opportunity to make money if you accept those uh papers that we would usually uh reject so um I think uh critical thinking is uh is is alive and well as always has been uh but perhaps uh commercial uh Publishers that lack Integrity would uh see this as a as a challenge and actually needs to align with a managerial mainstream an anti-gen
der movement and perhaps that explains some of the changes that's uh happened in the last few months at gender work and organization and I'd like to end by saying that somebody said to me this morning uh somebody uh from Colombia said to me Allison we are grieving and we don't know quite what to do because this wasn't a a journal it was uh everything else and the journal benefited from the everything else so uh critical work is Alive and Well without a doubt thank you thank you very much uh espe
cially for concluding with those words of optimism Mariana do you want to come in and um say hi yeah yeah thank you very much Nella and thank you everyone for being here uh so I would like to actually um pick up on where Allison has finished but I would like to broaden that a little bit not a little bit maybe broaden that and I just would like to say that the critique cannot happen um uh cannot happen when the model of publishing I'll start with a small and I'll move to the bigger very briefly u
h when actually the model of publishing is extractivist as I call it in nature right of course we do critic of course we try no doubt and I'm one of them who tries and I'm one of them who actually is aware in which Mo model I operate basically we have for-profit Publishers who are actually setting the standards by which uh we die or live literally our livelihood and die and leave I'm I'm moving to the next topic so I think it's a problematic model in itself because for-profit Publishers have ver
y different objectives as as seen in this specific and other cases of w is actually dispensing with um I don't know unprofitable inconvenient I just don't know because they never explained right because they have the power so they don't even have to explain so um so maybe the model needs questioning itself right and I know that people will say it's easy for you to say Mar because you have have you know kind of established I don't know you've been long long enough in the field not to worry about
things like livelihoods but precisely because it is about livelihood and about ever more harsh conditions that we make our livelihood uh that we need to question it and I'm moving to the biggest thing which is the big the the biggest thing for me at the moment it's very difficult to talk about feminist critiques whil things happen in Palestine while war is waged in Palestine while our colleagues academics feminists are being killed are being torture raped Etc and and while it is so difficult fro
m the beginning to actually articulate any critic even saying ceasefire is a unacceptable word right um so I think um it's a feminist issue to show solidarity with our colleagues um in in Palestine and there has been a long history of solidarity between third excuse me Global South I'm a bit older you know I'm used different terminologies Global South feminist men and women and and and everybody um with Palestine so I just want to note that thank you very important and thank you for those words
I'm sure many will appreciate them um Mia thank you very much and thank you everyone for being here it's so important that we have these conversations thank you Nila for organizing um and I'm just a little bit touched by Mariana's last words and I'm trying to think of how to come into the discussion without moving away from this important topic about the Warfare but but I would actually like to kind of go back to the question Nea and I think maybe we should turn it around and say how will they s
urvive without us I think if we look at the business model and this is really in my view it's a clash between business model thinking that the publishers are using and the criteria we use for decision making in Academia so the the business model thinking is of course focused on profitability and they make their decisions around profitability and they cannot survive without us because their profit is dependent on our Free Labor whereas our decisionmaking that depends on the Quality Systems we use
in Academia and the Quality Systems in our um line of work is about creating novel knowledge it's about creating new insights that are worthy of of and within the field that is accepted within the field so I think if we live up to that we will have to leave because they cannot um impose their way of managing through a business model on our uh research criteria and I think this is really important because this is also what we can use to navigating this they will try to individualize the problem
we all know that we need different kind kind of um both Publications but also academic responsibilities in order to be promoted in order to stay in this business and that's a way of individualizing the issue but if we dare keep on focusing on the criteria for quality and live up to the criteria of equality instead of focusing on um these individualized ways of thinking about Academia and then letting the business model rule us I think the question becomes much more can they survive without us if
we leave and take our free labor with us these journals will not survive so this is also what I think this is the question we need to raise and we need to keep on reposing the questions so they it's not their conditions that set the way that we can think about new Solutions but that we reformulate it so we can ask the right questions that's what we're really good at and we can create critical solutions that answer them in caring Collective ways thank you very much that was a lovely response uh
thank you Mia Melissa is next and then Emmanuela thank you so much Nella I just uh well first of all I wanted to say thank you so much for bringing us together today and it really is wonderful to be in everybody's company uh today uh and taking part in this discussion so thank you uh to everyone uh but especially Nella of course um I just wanted to um sort of connect to everything that Allison and Maran and me have said so far something for me that really is really important about the current st
ate of critical thought at the moment particularly in the in the current situation not just with the journal and you know with the wider sphere of Academia and critical thought but also of course the wider political stage that Mariana was uh was was referring to um and I think for me critical thought if we think about it going hand in hand with marginalized ways of being ways of existing and and being together it is arguably in a state of Crisis just now but but in some way some of the events th
at have unfolded this week around the journal and our wider Community um sort of show me and remind me in a in a really optimistic way that um that it's in crisis that we see these these bonds strengthening between kind of critical feminist thinking um and practice and action so putting into place and practice so much of what has been written about in recent years um across this community um on ethics relationality assembly and struggle and working and writing differently um often we think about
these things and we we we don't really imagine or we don't have the the scope or or we don't have the um we don't have the almost the strength to imagine what they might be like and some ways for me at least with with what's happened with gender work and organization um responding to wy's actions and those of other you know journals and Publishers that we know about is that what's been mobilized Is this different way of working uh together we've been able to put into practice so much of what we
've been developing and working on together in in theory so in terms of being in in crisis then I think critical thought is kind of both it's both under threat but it's also mobilized exactly when it's under threat so it's in this state of Crisis and and Publishers absolutely at the Forefront of a kind of wider cooptation of of critique and of a system that relies on a very gender donation of free labor and we've seen what what can happen this weekend when that when that labor when that effort t
hat energy that struggle is redirected into something more Collective more collaborative and less exploitative where we stand up and say no we're no longer contributing to this um so it's not simply a question of whether critical thinking can survive in these kinds of circumstances but of how we can make sure that it thrives and what kinds of conditions and relations we need to do in order to protect those spaces and the time for critique as well so I just wanted to kind of echo some of what had
been said so far by by sharing those thoughts lovely and lovely link uh uh with each other's uh kind of statement uh Jeff you are next no sorry Emmanuela is the ne is next and then Jeff apologies thank you so much Nella for organizing the session and and the whole day of um days of events and thank you so much everyone for being here indeed that's a quite uh important and critical moment to have these conversations uh both before it's intern both because it's International women's day but also
uh following the uh the series of events that have uh unfolded these past days with gender organ organization and critical feminist communities of Scholars and I I would I mean honestly I I really Echo all of the points that were mentioned before and thank you so much Mariana for uh for um for um paying tribute to our um sister feminists in Palestine and recognizing all of the losses and and the way these voices are marginalized and not even given any kind of space to speak uh and um what I real
ly liked in the way in all of what you said before is the focus on the wi actually which shows the communal aspect of what we're doing and I think me mentioned it also quite well when she made the Jos between the individualistic interests driving publishing houses um business driven objectives and the communal interest that are driving the work that we do and I think this we is really um is really it really makes our voice much stronger and at the same time it's also a question who is included i
n that way um and of course today it's International women's day but at the same time I think it goes beyond being a human it goes beyond that it can be queer uh embod queer experiences of embodiment it can be indigenous perspectives it can be um Knowledge from the global South it can be any kind of perspectives that have been marginalized um in the mainstreaming of of management and organization studies education uh we see all these days um the massive support that uh has received um um all of
this movement with what happened in the gender work and organization and colleagues across disciplines not only in organization studies but also from critical accounting from other disciplines we see that there is an enormous support coming um into this kind of of of effort and um that makes it quite unfortunate I mean what what's happening with the publishing houses and the business objectives that are directing uh knowledge development these days but at the same time I think it gives a lot of
Hope for the future and uh for the communal efforts that we're all engaging with for the nice things that we can do together to create spaces where we can we can we can create some kind of of um home for different perspectives to thrive in the years to come and so definitely um definitely there is uh a lot of tension but at the same time I think there's a lot of Hope For Better Futures to come and for basis that can be the basis that we all together with all the differences that that involves um
broaden up perspectives broaden up the futures for um academic know more broadly so um I guess that echos has already been said but I really wanted to focus on that communal aspect and to the differences that might be involved into the we that that we're talking about thank you so much no uh absolutely important to stress it and underline it that uh criticality is all about including these marginalized voices uh and uh yeah U voices that are normally silent uh and under threat of being silenced
um Jeff you're next yeah okay well first of all thanks DaNell and everybody it's been um it's great to see so many people and so many faces as well people haven't seen for some time it's great and I have to say I mean also thanks for allowing me to be part of this panel as well I wasn't sure at first whether I should be and um I can say really I mean the last few weeks have been extremely power powerful for me and also very very moving I mean I haven't been so involved in the journal recently b
ut it's like coming back and I think it's very important to say also not only the journal but also what we're talking about and I agree with everything's been said so far I should say I won't try and repeat things I mean the journal is now 30 years old but actually of course I mean we all know that that didn't start suddenly in 1994 there's a whole history going back you know many decades or centuries before that and I see this as part of really it's a very long-term historical struggle let's fa
ce it and I think this is I would say just one part of that changing changing struggle really um the other another sort of comment I have to make you know is that with the reference to Warfare and Invasion and so I mean it's impossible to discuss those things which are so current and then well they're happening all the time in the world obviously they're not just happening like recently there's always was you cannot discuss those things without discussing men and masculine is critically I have t
o say that the other thing I I wanted to mention and thinking about the sort of the first question that you raised Nella I mean I think it's very paradoxical I mean I attended a session recently given by somebody who who who studies journals you know and the economics of journals specifically not particularly in the feminist way and I mean there now well he repeat uh reported there are now 70,000 academic journals current I don't know if that figure's correct or not and it's increasing every yea
r here um with Journal content he said four to 5% increasing annually so on the one down there's a host of journals doing all sorts of interesting important lots of interesting things on the other hand the concentration and this is very important the concentration in certain Publishers and elier Springer Wy Taylor and Francis and ACS the American Chemical Society look after you could say 45 48% of journals and 7 the cost of journals this is really a huge concentration massive concentration so wh
en decisions are made as has been said about journals and their future and their editorships and which direction you know this is one Journal out of hundreds or thousands for for Publishers and it's it's not necessarily their main interest in terms of continuing the kind of critique that we've been involved in so I mean although this is host of journals at the same time there's this massive centralizing and hierarchi is that the word hierarchizing of journals which I think has been made so much
worse by the obsession with metrics including by universities research councils and all the rest which we all know I think this obsession with metrics and ranking and impact factors is just really counterproductive I'll stop at that point okay uh thank you Jeff uh very important of course chinia you're next um thank you Nell and thank you everyone um I was um when I P my hands up I was going to say something um uh along the line of what Emanuel said and I I agree with all the points that made so
far however I think I want to move a little bit um uh from um you know the Manu emanuel's contribution and um I want to clarify I suppose some aspects and um I think this is very opportunity for us to to do so and it is um the objective of uh community and Community like gender work and organization um is an an inclusive um uh agenda is an agenda to include and particular gender work and organization to include critical thinking and to include um everybody that can contri rute to that critical
thinking but what I want to make explicit is that um we should really um think uh who uh even within our community um who holds that door uh open uh and um open for whom or to whom and I think this is where we are actually coming from we are what we're trying to do certainly that's where I come from is looking at myself and my positionality with the errors and the mistakes that I made and therefore us as a community what we are doing now is actually um pushing for some change and whatever if cha
nge and you know is possible which is very apt for you know the 30-y year anniversary for gender working organization probably a shift a sort of change was um um uh you know is is a good thing in for the next 30 Years but also I think it's what I'm trying to say is where we are where we are going and where we are now opening ourself up is uh we are open and we are open to question our positionality as well as a community we are opening we are there looking at us what we can do better uh I'm not
saying that you know uh what we've done we've done a lot of good but how can we do even better uh as individuals and as community and I think this is a message to obviously first and foremost the people there are um in uh in the call and I'm also particular to in particular to Junior uh colleagues and Junior scholar because and that is one of the strength that gender work and organization Ed to be welcoming to um Junior scholar and the mentoring uh has been uh fundamental but I think we need to
reiterate this and make junior scholar feel that they can feel secure within a certain community and I think while possibly this community might feel safe uh to um colleague that work in the global South sometimes it can be intimida sorry in the global North sometimes can be intimidating for colleagues that work in the global to with different methodologies different styles of writing diff coming to gender aspect within with different cultural elements and so I think this is um you know that's w
here we want to go we want to go to welcome and to uh be open to diversity in diversity of thinking that comes from everywhere and everyone thank you chinia very important and yes that kind of place of self- criticality is the first step to being inclusive right um Alice you're next you mute your love I was about to unmute myself but instead I dropped my hand so I was going somewhere else but I want to follow up on one since you just said because or first of all thank you n for having us all her
e and it's yeah um because I was there first thinking about the words nurturing and the words home used but I think um in a thread a couple of days ago Alison you wrote that you don't feel grief and I did feel a lot of grief last week but with what you said now CC I really think that this is such a beautiful opportunity to really sit down as a collective and think about what we want to see moving forward and how we can nurture that so you really can become this home for diversity and diverse exp
ressions and not get stuck in what uh what has been so I went from from this very deep and painful grief to this affirmative kind almost almost upsetting affirmative um sense this morning so I was just like to thank you all for being here and I look forward to continue building this with you because I think that thinking about the Wii there's something extremely valuable happening right now so yeah um thank you all very much um are you touched uh on so many things uh I am frantically typing it a
s you speak um and I'm sure that these views that you have communicated now are shared with broader Community Beyond uh uh our Journal agender work and organization journal and increasingly indeed we are witnessing mass resignations of editorial board uh in response to these kind of authoritarian undemocratic practices of Publishers and uh um which I suppose links the most to what MIA was saying can these journals actually uh survive without without us and can these Publishers actually afford to
lose us um and uh um we've seen that the entire editorial board of the sociology uh general theory and Society has resigned after they say the publisher spring in nature installed new editors in Chief without consulting the board similar development uh were said to have taken place in the general lingua um critical public health neuroimage and most recently as of yesterday in gender working organization where a selection process uh uh ended in our Mass resignation letter from the journal's boar
ds and I was wondering how do you read these developments more broadly and do you see potential potential change arising from these and if yes what should ensure the strength and longevity of such change who wants to take that first oh yes Ginia um I want to uh first I would like to specify one thing which um is mainly uh to to make very clear that what's happened uh in this case uh with this election process is not that we um we are against the individuals that have been appointed uh we are um
what happened is the ex full exclusion of the community uh and again I don't want necessarily say that the community is the only you know is the is the door holder that I mentioned before it doesn't have to be somebody uh that comes from the community necessarily the community is open is open to uh new people is open to um uh new approaches what happens in this case is first of all deceiving in the sense that there was a one point of the selection process a fake what I would call a fake attempt
by the publisher to show that they were including some representation of the journal when that representation of the journal in fact was purely there to um um we we no no it was not involved in decision making it was not involved it was purely a facade to show that later on in the process which wasn't the decision making it was um there was some involvement of the journal in the name of a editor associate editors um and this um and when questions were asked in relation to what criterias were use
d for selections um how people were appointed why um the answer was uh our business our Journal uh we go nothing to explain and I think this is where uh questions started to emerge so um we needed to understand uh what was behind the appointment of certain individuals not particularly for their individuals but come individuals coming for example from one specific research um research concern uh rather than uh represent the diversity of gender work and organization we wanted expert on the editori
al uh on the among the Editor in Chief they came from different areas so that again people that submit the work to gender working organization they can see we that we are providing a message of diversity and therefore feminist Theory feminist critique had to be represented in the uh edit in the in the edit editors in Chief among the editors in Chief and this was one of the uh one of the issues where our resistance hours conversation started and I just wanted to specify this for the people that j
oined this SCH that we've got um you know 60 people I don't know how many that might not know their background or where we are how this uh happen and you know change I think Nella asked something about change change happens sometimes in Little Steps but change happens following Revolution so uh I don't know where we are starting a revolution or where we're just doing a little step but we will see where we are heading thank you uh chiny well hopefully because there are so many journals that are t
hat seem to be in the same pickle um hopefully it smells like Revolution but let's see what Mia has to say I want to shout Revolution um but first of all I wanted to say and I think this is picking up on on cia's point that this is really about ownership and what we' have been told very clearly from from the publisher is that they own the journal therefore they own the decision and this is back to in my view the misunderstanding between Publishers organizing and decision- making from a business
model thinking where they think that decision- making can happen one place and be done elsewhere organized elsewhere implemented El elsewhere whereas a research Community is organized around Community it's about respecting and caring for each other's work because it makes the science or the research more important and more clear and better advancing it on on and on and on and and so the decision making was made out of the idea that ownership could be in a journal or in a publishing house while a
s we see it of course the ownership of This research is all of ours it's the community that contributes and we contribute by authoring reviewing taking part in debates taking part in conferences and this is I think back to the point about change we can own the change they can keep their journal and own the journal for those who want to contribute with their free labor for something that other people own and make money from we can take our work our labor our community and create the ownership we
feel is the right thing and this is also where we need to to I think use this situation as chinia said earlier to actually also think about the changes we want to make to how we run journals how we think about academic communities and I think to be honest this is when the when the very very tough and hard everyday work begins because one thing is putting a symbolic signature on this letter it is so so so important but the real work of developing a new home of creating everyday changes for our co
mmunity that starts now now is where we decide where we put our labor where we put our reviewing capacities where we where we submit our papers if we do that with the community even if we start a new journal or a new outlet that might not be ranked as high in the first place this is still where the choice is and that's why the big change is in the small everyday choices we are going to make from now on and in the future of how we want to own this community how we want to own critical thinking wi
thin feminist and gender research in within organization management but also wider and I think this is really the most important question we can ask ourselves now how am I going to do the change today tomorrow and onwards when I make choices about my work and my labor thank you thanks Mia um yeah absolutely and uh we are now at that point where we are learning from one another and when we can learn from one another what is there to be done and about the St and share kind of strategy amongst ours
elves how to create um uh an environment in which we can actually make these uh uh decisions daily um I'm going to just say uh uh just note your attention Mia to the question from n um she is thinking before I move on to Mariana um but just for later um she's thinking of this in terms of generative refusals uh where can we collectively refuse so something to bear in mind for for later uh Mariana on to you so uh thank you very much indeed uh Mia me Mia me uh you just raised the point uh actually
where do we give our free uh labor indeed because it's all about Free Labor let us not forget being an associate editor being a review board being an editorial board it's tons of unpaid voluntary work and we are very glad to do that surely but especially for people like myself who are kind of longer in the field and more established not fa facing although we all face one way or another but not facing the immediate um job precarity the way actually Junior Scholars face and I will be very honest h
ere that actually when I started 20 years ago it was so much easier for me and people of my generation if I may put it so and um and and it's so much much much much much much more difficult for junior Scholars never mind the scholars from the global South right so having said that we are I mean if we talk about solidarity we should bear the interest of um uh incoming generation and people from outside our Geographic and cultural hegemonic area if I may say put it so but um but for people like my
self especially I think um there is also an obligation obligation okay it's personal view actually to uh to try to publish within like peer community and I will just only um put here um actually and I have put it on the on the chat right now okay hopefully I manag I did so as there's one of that such initiatives called peer Community organization studies that actually as me said and then other people have said so eloquently before me actually it's a peer work it's a community work and um and it
is um in a way it's kind of like a lot of masks are dropping now right when Wy said look decision is with us it's our ownership uh if you if you want to play by our rules you do we don't have to explain to you anything you you do as we say right which is kind of um in a way revelatory and salutary and and an emancipator because you cannot just uh no longer can delude yourself right what kind of game you what is playing so um so I I I just it's it a little bit reminds me of like a financial ranki
ng agenes right that they rank the financial institutions and then the health and survival of those institution depends on for-profit um ranking um you know um institutions so a little bit the journals play that game our institutions um use publishing publishing um for-profit publishing um um businesses so to speak just to decide whether our schol ship counts what counts what's scholarship what's not scholarship and we actually have been in a way sleep walking into what um can turn into such an
outcome as we see now right and and Wy maybe is an outlier but I think uh as somebody said on these various lists other journalists are watching because what Wy does and I'm not speaking only specifically about our J about gender work and organization but also other other journals you know so um so maybe maybe I say maybe some of us who can afford and I belong to that category who can afford a bit more maybe we should give that labor H to creating and supporting and sustaining peer peer organiza
tions that's all I wanted to say thank you uh thanks Mariana uh Jeff okay yeah there's so much to comment on and agree with and discuss um I think I want to go back briefly to the question of critique and content I mean again perhaps it's repeting and following Mariana's comment I mean I think the big problem is so much now has been taken over in terms of say impact factors and citations and so on rather than looking at the content of what people are publishing I mean without being sort of nosta
lgic I if I go back you know to dare I say 70s and 80s when someone published something in the department people did sometimes show an interest but now in some dep departments it's all about you know have you pack published in this you know so-called top rank Journal this is really Danger stuff you know and I think also in terms of critique I mean I think we hopefully would agree I think we should treat treat critique as a very open-ended notion I mean there are such there are many kinds of crit
ique you know I mean there's critique within a a socialistic tradition you know socialist feminist tradition lesbian feminist tradition queer feminist I mean there kinds of critique and I think an open-endedness of critique including as has been done in gwo a critique of different kinds of writing and representation so it's also about turning that back uh in a more open-ended way and then to follow the question of I mean the technology is there now for actually you know creating different kinds
of publishing as we know but it means actually uh using that technology you know whether it's the example that just referred to by Mariana or whether it's other kinds of Open Access uh publishing I mean and I think in some ways the Natural Sciences have actually or some Natural Sciences have taken this up much more quickly than social sciences of humanities you know and I have a list here from G lens organization site open knowledge Maps Iris AI semantic scholar Dimension science open I mean the
re are a lot of these Open Access publishing sites that exist so I think we need to be more creative of creating that and I think the next thing clearly is to create a new Journal basically I mean that's that's the next agenda I which actually fits all the things that have been talked about so ently um in this panel so I think it's who's going to get involved in doing that work for the next five years actually I think 10 years and Beyond thank you and one of the kind of questions links into that
uh kind of uh labor and how we can sustain ourselves without burning out for later but first emanuela sorry I missed you in the um in my busy screen you had your hand raised and then Melissa oh no worries at all n don't worry I mean it's already so hard I guess to organiz and I think you're doing like an excellent job thank you so much for that um yeah I guess my point is uh echoing what has been said thank you so much for these nice ideas and it's I I guess it it also comes back to Mariana's p
oint on the different generations of Scholars involved and then different uh phases in our careers and I guess it's also about saying no to complacency to to to established way of doing things to the vested habit that we have as academics and and this as well means saying saying no to the metrized uh culture of Academia which uh of course is is constraining a lot how we publish what we publish how critical we can be with our own positionality in the work that we do and and which means as well co
ming to Cynthia's point before on how do we really make change not just doing change but also how we do we do it uh among different colleagues of different career stages and uh the power dynamics involved and the hierarchies involved how do we create this inclusive environment and at the same time I think it's also important to look into the past and to get some learning to see I mean what what have we done well what haven't we done well so I mean it's really about critiquing ourselves as well a
nd the system as well and learning from past mistakes and going with a longterm towards unlearning also to an extent so it's not just about learning but also unlearning how things are being done so far what has gone wrong and then going forward with new ideas and New Perspectives so so I guess there is there is something around this idea of learning and un learning and questioning what we actually know to be able to to move forward uh towards um towards more sustainable futures for feminist know
ledge and for the future generations of Scholars uh that are coming for the current Generations um so I guess there is a connection between past present and future and where are we going and how do we go there um as a community of Scholars and in the end saying no to complacency and and the neglect that we are facing from our institutions also when it says when it comes to the Free Labor that we give um to the to the publishing houses that are running the journals that we're publishing for um an
d taking an active stance for for what we're doing for our scholarship and for the kind of issues that we are trying to address through the scholarship that we're doing um so really paying attention to the knowledge that we create and not just uh to the numbers of public that we have because in the in the schools that we're working these days I mean I'm really um asking myself sometimes I mean do they really know I mean what I'm publishing they just are happy to have publication sometimes becaus
e rankings Tak schools up and stuff but I mean do they really look into the kind of publication that we produce and I think um the communal work that we do here is is a lot about the kind of knowledge that is created uh not just the output but also the trouble of getting there um and I think there's a lot of work um to be done ahead uh but also learning from the past and going towards um something more sustainable hopefully for um for the knowledge that we create um so these were just some ideas
to as I was inspired from uh many of the of the ideas that I heard thank you so much no you're absolutely right uh emanu and thank you for that I think uh with those kind of we have to also change the culture surrounding it because uh as we know from our practice people are usually more interested in where we publish than the topic we publish on um so there's a lot of unlearning to take place Melissa thanks so much NY sort of just picking up on that point going back to the earlier thread of con
versation about um the question of whether this is revolutionary I the withdrawal of our labor and our support for a general like wo as it's become um and it's redirection elsewhere Allison I hope you don't mind me saying it's Allison but Allison made me smile earlier in the week when she said that one of the dilemas is how to fit the revolution in between the ironing and the marking um and it did make me think about you know these small steps actually are very meaningful for us when they become
something much bigger in a cumulative sense um but I just wanted to pick up on uh ne's point in the chat um and also some of the really important things that that been said by emanuela and and others as well about the withdrawal of our Free Labor or um you know as we hope it's going to be it's redirection to the the spaces where we feel we need it most I.E not very definitely not in the generation of profits for commercial Publishers uh like Wy or even in the service of ref and other you know a
ssessment exercises although we realize that that is part of the infrastructure which within which many of us have to work um but but certainly not in meeting their agendas so you know journals like uh guo and others that we know about that have changed the aims the scope and their ways of working made these fundamental decisions reframing you know what they are and what they do without any consultation um with those people whose labor is what makes the journal and the journal as Allison said ea
rlier it's just really The Hub um it's it's the networks it's the activities it's the conferences it's the events and everything else that that kind of makes them what they are as a focal point for our critical work um so for for me this is hopefully part of what what's not just a a generative refusal but a regenerative refusal we're thinking about how we can rebuild as something different um and it feels like one thing to be giving our labor very freely to a publisher but actually something qui
te different um to see it as a communal resource and a communal effort that we can share among us so to go back to chinia and Alice's points earlier I feel genuinely for the first time in ages after what's happened over the last couple of weeks um um actually now ready to move forward and optimistic about the kind of energy the commitment and the solidarity um that that actually publishes practices and other things we've been talking about to have mobilized uh and this is where I think the stren
gth and the longevity longevity of our um our future plans will come from so we know what we don't want to be and and and WHYY have shown us what that looks like um and that's actually I think been very helpful you know they've helped us with this uh and Chin is reminded us very much of the importance of a reflexive critique as the basis for rebuilding as we as we move forward but the the prospect of starting aesh I think if we were if we were doing this in isolation it would be it would be abso
lutely overwhelming the volume of work the responsibility the the prospect of kind of dealing with all the operational maybe even the legalistic side of things um you know I I know I would find that really really daunting to be involved that sort of level with setting up a or rebuilding a journal and everything that goes with the journal but but I don't genuinely I don't feel like that in this community and in this company um um the people's capacity to share to support to encourage to understan
d to reflect um and just to share skills experience expertise and so on that has genuinely been really energizing I think is probably the word that I would use so um in terms of kind of are we ready to move forward and is there the capacity to do that and the commitments do that then I I hope I'm not being overly optimistic when I say yeah absolutely I really think there is and I'm I'm daunted but also excited uh by what I hope is going to come next thank you Melissa very important and I hope I
won't put some salt on that optimism that you uh quite eloquently you know talked about but um it's about also about bit being a bit realistic about that kind of hard labor that awaits us and um saru uh was flagging uh this in in her comment um she was um gosh I lost it I yes with the risk of being a bit of a killjoy um in the not critical way we also have to think about what kind of organizational structures are inclusive as someone who was uh part of ephemera for 10 years developing and runnin
g a community- based Journal is super difficult so may I suggest to ask the question how we envision to organize a new home that is inclusive and communitybased but which also works and moves the community forward and I suppose this links to my next question and I'm sorry again for kind of ruining that uh uh kind of degree of optimism that you introduced Melissa that we so desperately need but when it comes to attack on critical thought uh inclusive Progressive research seems uh um to be the eas
y and frequent Target and and because of that it might be a bit more difficult to rebuild uh so perhaps you could reflect on why is that first and then uh perhaps how we can go about uh rebuilding whil also sustaining attacks do you want me to come in there or should I hand over to somebody else who wants to jump in yes please um that would be wonderful Melissa of course um I mean I think as you know there are some practical issues to think about here there are some practical issues there are so
me par paradigmatic issues there are political issues to consider and and this is such an important question to to raise and to think about um so thanks you know thanks for flagging it uh and and um my personal preference is that as we move forward with guo as a journal um that we think about University presses um rather than necessarily commercial Publishers but I'm also very mindful that my experience of the operational side of running a journal is limited but um I do think that there are kind
of paradigmatic issues about the kind of knowledge that we want to be valued there are political issues to think about in terms of how we work and what we're trying to achieve and of course these are not separate they're absolutely intertwined we know that the kind of knowledge that we produce the way that we want to work the basis on which we produce knowledge these are things that seem to fit increasingly less well with a very instrumental approach um to what kind of knowledge is valued and b
y whom as as Jeff and others kind of alluded to earlier I think as well there are assumptions that are made about feminist or Democratic ways of working and groups and communities um uh and I think I think some of the assumptions that might be made about um sort of feminist ways of working for example these might be perceived as our our weaknesses and I think that's something that Wy absolutely have done but actually of course that underestimation of what we can do when we when we when we when w
e share our time and our skills and our resources um you know that's actually our our strength we know what we can do um it feels like we're in a bit of a battle at the moment in the situation that we're in um and I think you know the the element of surprise in any battle is really important but um you know as as Jeff and others have said guo is 30 years 30 years uh um old this year um it's I know others here gu was the the first place I published as a PhD student in 1994 I think or at the end o
f my PhD um so there are a lot of people who've been sort of very attached to it for a long time you know many others so in terms of moving forward I think actually there is a lot to bring you know we're not starting aesh we have an established Community we have an established knowledge base we have established expertise we have a lot to offer to the right publisher and we have to find a publisher that can provide the kind of um uh the kind of infrastructure that would reflect how we would want
to work going forward um and I want I perhaps I'm being naively optimistic I think I'd rather be cautiously optimistic I'm under No Illusion about the amount of work that's going to be involved and I know that that will involve a lot of donated labor um for me it feels genuinely different to be donating that to the grow Community rather than as we feel we continually do donating it to commercial Publishers um um institutional infrastructures that don't recognize or respect you know what we what
we do donate and what we dedicate so yeah I I think there's a lot to think about but there is also a lot to take forward as well sorry I was rambling a bit there but I'm very happy to hand over now to somebody else if that's okay not at all rambling I can listen to you for hours um Mia do you want to uh jump in on this thank you yes and I guess I mean I was uh nodding when you read up Sarah's point because I have also been part of ephemera and seen a lot of the background work and I think of cou
rse we need to realize and I don't think there's anything naive in what you're saying Melissa or what we have been discussing at all but of course we need to to realize that we have to then be ready to take on a lot of difficult work but in fact as feminists we do a lot of difficult work work all the time we do actually nothing but difficult work this is actually what we're professionalized in I guess both when it's visible and when it's being praised or when it's a high rank publication or what
ever but also behind the scenes all the invisible labor that we do every day so I think in that sense we are well equipped to handle these kinds of quite difficult situations and the concerns of how to organize we will be able to H to handle and not least because we are doing it for a purpose that is not profitable but is for critical gender feminist inclusive research and this is what we are all willing to ascribe all of our labor to so I think in that sense we have not a solution that is an ea
sy fix but we have the solution in the in the sense that we have all the power here we have all the labor that we want to contribute with and I think the other part which is really important and that goes back to the very first question about critique and that is that what one of the things that we are really good at in this community is to keep on posing difficult critical questions not just to others but to ourselves so we will be willing to keep on questioning how can we do this in other ways
how can we Ure that this space is inclusive enough how can we assure that we keep on um critic izing and thinking in difficult ways about the criteria we see as what good research is how to participate in this community so on and so forth all the questions that publishing houses like Wy probably found very difficult to collaborate with because those questions will also be posed when they are talking directly to the formal power positions and I think this is one of our most important tools one o
f if I may say like a tool one of the most important things that we can bring forward is that we keep on daring to ask the difficult questions also when they are creating discomfort and even if they are questioning our own positions or positionality in this and I think that is to me at least uh what we really need to bring into this and it is not naive at all to think that we can do it but of course we have to remember that we we have to keep on doing all the difficult and very time consuming la
bor both when it is celebrated and when it is invisible absolutely thank you Mia would anybody else would like to uh come on this question um yes Jeff well I mean perhaps just to say kind of the obvious I mean but I think um it's not unconnected you know the fact to what's going on in mainstream Politics as well I mean and this is really obvious when one looks across the world you know in different forms in different countries and so and so forth I think this is relevant and there's been some Il
lusions to that already earlier the first question so I'm not exactly how sure when how it connects the different levels of mainstream politics and right-wing politics and and the use of gender I mean in very very crude ways within mainstream you know as a contested category or whatever within mainstream polic I think this is relevant and it has to be part of the critique and discussion that we're having that's I'm sorry for that's so obvious and the other thing I want to say thinking about the
future and I think myself there has to be a new journal and it seems well there are many aspects of that has already been said by by Minister and others but I mean I think it does need one thing I think is really important is to include from the very beginning this this diversity or this I mean so Global South Global North to include people not just added on do you know what I mean which I think that happen so many times in so-called International or Global associations or whatever that people f
rom the so-called other regions then get added in you know five years later I think that being there from the very beginning I know this isn't totally in the spirit of guo it's obviously I think that is so important and collaborations with with Scholars in in Africa and Latin America American and and Asia and so as part of the formation of a new Journal I think is so important and then beyond that I mean again to say the other I think it needs probably a core group of 10 20 people not not 500 yo
u know or 346 has signed the letter um and then this larger Community which we know exists and is here and you as been has been made clear in the last week or two um who you know provide if you like free labor or provide just basic support in many different ways I mean these are the three elements I think um you know the diversity the global North Global South so-called represent from the beginning the core group who they are and that can change that can change over the years not be a fixed grou
p and then this wider Community thank you Jeff uh very useful to to hear um and kind of adds to that optimism that U Melissa um highlighted earlier Alison I see a raised hand yeah thanks and I'll follow on from uh Jeff I guess in um in saying that I think uh what's happened to gender work an organization is part of an anti-gender movement it's uh part of what what looks like mainstreaming is part of uh depoliticizing uh gender research um it is uh definitely uh part of uh a fascist uh movement u
h in various uh forms but in order to move forward more positively I think we should um we should ask the community what they want and uh the structures um that uh suits their ways of uh working and the knowledges um that they work with in their localities and um I uh rudely uh forgot to acknowledge the uh gadal people of the aura Nation commonly known as Sydney and I pay my respects uh to them but the indigenous people here uh make me feel uh very vulnerable about the knowledge of uh of the uh
Global North actually and the fragility um of us all uh so I think we should um ask the community um what they want and we should build a journal that's part of um a much bigger governance structure so that um a publisher will never have hold over a journal uh like gender work and organization uh again and we have the support from many uh Wy Journal editors and many uh Journal editors Way Beyond critical management studies and organization studies because they can see the writing on the wall too
as Publishers start to restructure for cost Effectiveness and actually I feel really really sad uh Natalia is here uh in the in the meeting and um Natalia is a friend of mine but unfortunately uh she has been uh appointed uh to this position to work with two people that are unknown to us and uh I would like to wish you the very best of luck Natalia working with Wy because they nearly killed me which is why I'm very quiet now I never ever want to do that free labor for them again thank you thank
you Alison um uh Mariana yes would you like to add something um and then Ju Just very quickly because I'm aware that I would like who is also a friend of mine by the way um um right so I just wanted to say very quickly about practicalities and about um what it means to do something collectively and feminist um philosophy and feminism as a movement grew out of activist practice and feminist philosop feminism philosophically sees the other whoever is the other as an ally not as somebody to compet
e with right and that whole model of in and picking on Jeff points how it links to broader political ideological trends that we are actually at every level from I mean being being schooled to be um docile consumers being schooled to be individuals being schooled to be one person Enterprises in Academia right it everything militates against us actually collaborating with others and of course I'm not naive whoever try to organize anything we know how much grinding and um you know unrewarding work
this this involves the Sarah Louis actually very correctly pointed out at the same time when it is done collectively it's so how can I say there are so many rewards and so many actually I mean it's like what what is it actually one yes happiness is overrated but what actually makes this useful while being mindful that happiness is overrated is just actually one gets out of bed every morning and does something that can actually improve other people's life for the better very very tiny things and
that's very much the feminist practice which and and that gives me strength I'm not naive at my age that would be ludicrous if I were but um yeah because it's something worthwhile and I mean I won't be in this forever surely but there is so much energy from people um who are much younger and in a different stage of career than I am and I think that's the worthwhile type of work that one can try achieving when waking up every day and trying to do something to influence other people's life for bet
ter thank you thank you very much Mariana um uh it's time to move on to to Q&A anyway uh so I'm going to uh thank our panelists for the time being uh and move on to our audience so Natalia I can see your hand raised um so yeah yeah I'd like to I'd like to first of all congratulate the community on what it is doing because this is really important this is um an opportunity to voice the concerns and despite the you know the the problematic kind of uh situation in which I personally find myself as
an academic as an individual as a representative of the community um I believe that what this community is doing is trying to to Really reunite around an important Mission and this mission is to save critical feminist scholarship I am uh I haven't signed the letter myself I am part of VA for many many years I haven't signed it because of the kind of duality of the situation in which I've personally applied for this role thinking that I could help the community flourish and take the feminist crit
ical feminist scholarship forward what I'm realizing is that there are some processes that are just you know real difficult processes within the public publisher that are affecting and tarnish the relationship between the community and the journal I want to reiterate things that I've said in the meeting when we met with the associate editors is that there was no intention from myself or uh other editors to change the direction of the journal and I hope this will be heard I understand that the co
mmunity needs to disconnect from the journal which is driving the you know driving it itself and actually profiting from the Free Labor of individuals but I think creating a learning community which is more of an organization will enable this organization to have a much better voice and leverage in building a new Journal so I'm in complete in full support that's all I want to say at this point thank you so much for giving me a chance to say this um thank you very much um Natalia um Alice do you
want to come in quickly I see I saw your hand yeah I just wanted to thank Natalia for being here and for listening to us and for engaging in dialogue I think that um also sets a tone for whatever is to come so I really appreciate that thank you um well we have seen uh we have heard some really important things about how we can move forward and we learned uh a lot I think uh that especially that when it comes to journal when it when a journal is hollowed of its critical substance that doesn't aut
omatically mean the death of critical Community as we have Pro proven all these days and today so our seems to be thriving uh despite adversity uh currently and the lack of the intellectual home um so in terms of moving forward um we we thought we heard some hopeful things that critical thinking is safe as long as there is community as Allison said um uh we also heard a very uh kind of a flip in perspective from Mia uh thinking about us as the asset here the asset that uh can bring critical thin
king and and make it Thrive as Melissa said um so it is actually about Journal and Publishers whether they are going to be able to survive if they continue to treat us in such a way um and if they continue to erode our agency in the ways that they have been doing it lately um we also heard that there's always a need uh to make a home for diverse views and much l voices um and that the place for that the starting place for that is uh being self-critical so introducing self criticality as almost m
odest operandi of how we uh uh um H how we continue our practice uh going forward forward and also unlearning harmful practices that have that we have um inevitably adopted um just doing Academia so far um so with these kind of really hopeful thoughts I would like to invite the audience audience uh to kind of engage we have a little bit of time so if someone has question or a comment please raise your hand I think that's easier because um this event is really visited and there's a lot of you so
instead of uh I can see there are a lot of comments in the chat but unfortunately I don't think I can follow it uh through at this point so if someone has a question please raise your hand and that would be the quickest way to pose a question okay well whilst people are thinking can I just uh direct one uh question back uh to the panel why let's go back to the basics why is it important uh to have editors from the community so why is that representation something that matters um okay I can see t
wo hands raised chin and then Melissa uh Nella I was I raised my hands before you start talking and I was going to put a question that I've been asked since this letter was circulated and I suppose you know I'm just here offering a question uh what will happen um about to the conference and what will happen to the uh gender working organization networks um and I think this is something again that we need to uh Alison you know said we need to ask the community but also I think some people want so
me reassurance um uh some people that even have got papers uh in the coming up conference in in Canada um and you know the conference is been part of the integral part of the journal but it's not it's not owned by the journal and is it started as you know an or it's been organized by the community and is a part of the community so I don't know what what we can um you know what we can how can we reassure people that the conference the network will still have a house home no house but a home um an
d where thank you chin and Melissa thanks Nan thanks chinia um I just I mean just in response to that I I think I would say well my my sense anyway is that our intellectual home is only in part the journal it's really the whole community and and Chin I think you're absolutely right disentangling from Wy the conference itself the networks and I'm I'm a co-organizer of one of the networks I know there are quite quite a few members of the that Network here today um you know other events and worksho
ps special issues that we know are in process that's going to be complex we we know that and that's going to be a lot of work and and it while we want to maintain some kind of communal voice um because that's likely to be the most impactful we also know that there's not going to be a one-sized fit all model and that would be quite the wrong way to go about it because there will be different people in different circumstances with things at different stages so I think collaborative support based o
n recognition of specific circumstances and situations is going to be really important for our way forward and then in the longer term I think maintaining the momentum to go back to Sara's Point earlier is going to be a significant challenge you know as we rebuild um so I think it's it's really important not to underestimate um how maintaining that momentum once this initial kind of you know period of commitment and excitement and and and activity has sort of begun to dissipate that that's that'
s going to be a a significant issue but we are in a very different position to 30 years ago when the journal was first established you know we have this readymade community we have this pipeline of work we have this knowledge base um and and we have very different ways of connecting and communicating so you know Nella you've been able to bring everybody together today at really very very short notice um one of my children is off school sick today he's up in bed I can check on him make sure he's
okay while I'm taking part in this even five years ago that would never have been possible so you know we know that technology can be one of the mechanisms used to control us but it's also part of our our tool kit as you know we were talking about earlier so that's been really important to be able to bring people together to connect and to communicate so I think you know I just I just wanted to flag the significance of that thank you um thank you Melissa it's really important and uh uh as people
in chat were saying they were saying the similar similar thing we have different networks and they will continue and we will continue uh working through them and that is really important to acknowledge that um the journal gender working organization uh should be perceived as different to the community of gender working organ ation that continues to thrive there is another question that I would like to um kind of draw attention to and it links to what MIA was saying earlier about um um making ch
oices making conscious choices uh you know and going back to our values every day uh to ask ourselves what is it that I can do what uh my possession subject position affords me to do and how I can contribute to to resistance going forward and then linking it also to what Alison um said in in the chat um that um I sorry Alison I lost it but you said that we have to decide uh who uh we are doing or uh who are are we doing the work for H you know and this is this is to acknowledge the agency that w
e all have uh you know going forward and I'm saying here us as a community Community but also Wy but also the sitting you know editors in Chief uh we all have agencies so we all have to think about values that we want to nurture going forward and you know we have to think carefully about the actions that we can wrap around these values to enable them to thrive um and uh uh I can see some uh hands raised so I will stop here so first Mia and then Jeff thank you very much N I just wanted to return
to a point that I think is is um connecting all of us and I think it is what the toxics um is really about and it's about the individualization so the issues that are connected to what are we going to do with papers that are in process what are we going to do with special issues what are we going to do with the conference they all are all imposed on us as individuals but we need to share them to help each other find collect answers to them and I think that also links back to the question you sta
rted with n for the question and answer session which was um this thing about representation why did it matter it's because it's not about single indivi individuals it's about the collective it's about us doing something together and if we don't have representation of the collective so the whole community in the leadership we cannot mirror ourselves in it and we cannot recognize why we are here and I think this is really the for me it's the most important part of everything we do is that we keep
on reformulating the questions on the terms of the collective rather than on the terms of the individualization individualizing powers because those are the ones that will divide us those are the ones that are going to make us not uh make the choices and think about our agency as a collective agency that has ethical political roots and that we can do something with even though we are in our own bodies and each of us in our own ER departments and universities we are a collective mind and we can
reach out to each other and find Solutions together not a one- siiz fits all but we can help each other so it doesn't become individualized issues that we single-handedly have the um you know that we are either the success in making it or we will be the failure and I think this is really what it what it all comes down to to me that it's about the collective Community rather than single individuals uh thank you Mia uh we lost you just for for a brief second but uh I think we got to the gist of wh
at you were saying about Collective agency and you are absolutely right uh we we do have uh individual um powers and Privileges and subject positions that afford US different things but that always has to be accompanied by a question how does this contribute to the community to us to us all um so first Jeff and then um Natalia again well there are some very important comments in the chat I'm trying to follow them it's very difficult at the same time yeah I just want to say I suppose that um ther
e is this individualization as has been said by me and and others and this is really dangerous you know and the collective long-term Collective collaborative work is so important that's what it's about I think longterm not just the moment but at the same time as I think Nell highlighted we also do have choices actually individuals do choose what to do and can make decisions on where they put their energy and time and labor that's all I want to say it's up for people to actually deal with that in
dividually and so there's a kind of paradox between individualism and people have to make choices where they put their time and effort absolutely thank you Jeff uh yeah they there are sometimes degree of choices but yeah an element of choice is always there um I completely agree um Natalia sorry if just before just before that Natalia I just wanted to draw your attention to Alison's question I just noticed this is what I'm responding to so great thank you so what so there are two questions here
in the chat what do we do with the work in progress if it's rejected by your co-editors second question do you advise us we keep working on our special issues or retract them so there are 13 special issues in the journal right now some of them are very close to completion um so mist is for example I think we're just waiting on one piece uh that's a book review of the new book that Judith Butler has you know published and uh there is a special issue that Nella and associate states have been have
been managing this is going through and I think I've got in my box one more special issue where I need to make a decision on the editorial I I want to reiterate you know there was never any intention from any of us to stop the work that's that's been going on in the journal and so the journal will continue to publish the work that wants to be published in the journal I don't know how else to say it I don't know how else to repeat the same phrase that um you know I I understand that uh there are
a lot of concerns and there are a lot of disappointments and this rupture with the publisher um maybe in fact is uh blinding us a little bit I hope that these papers will be published in the journal and you know I I make a promise here make a pledge that I will not stop I will not stop any of the feminist scholarship that is coming to the journal to be stopped by anybody else so I have a meeting set up I'm I'm on holiday because my son also is sick uh like Melissa my son has broken his leg uh in
a skiing accident last week and uh we're kind of trying to figure things out at home um but I am monitoring I'm accepting papers that are coming in from me Alice has uh uh just made a decision for example on one of the feminist Frontiers papers I've uh made a decision ision on it straight away as soon as it hit my box and uh I'll continue to process this but actually in my discussions with Michael I will ask Michael to reassign papers and if there are papers that have been rejected for any reas
on I would like people to reach out to me and I will see what I can do um thank you Natalia uh that's really helpful uh okay I think we have overrun the time I'm I'm glad about that I mean I we have a full conference to run but I'm I'm glad that we had a robust uh discussion uh here so I will just I have the time to invite you to join us for the rest of the sessions and the the rest of the sessions will be in the same kind of um um addressing the same kind of Topic in terms of voice and protest
so we're going to hear from Marilyn pun about how how women can actually uh amplify their voices in protest especially when uh they are under threat of being subdued she's going to use uh the 19 2019 Hong Kong protest as an illustrative example we will also hear from uh Kate Kenny and she will talk about uh what ties so well to uh what we've been discussing this morning uh about the importance of disclosure and how disclosure is is uh uh inevitably agenda kind of component in why that matters wi
th the whole movement and then finally uh uh for the day we will conclude with the talk by Amina mama who is Nigerian British uh post Colonial writer wonderful writer who also uh has been actually as a matter of fact who's been running uh in an independent Journal um feminist Africa for 20 years uh so she has uh so much experience to share with us on that but she will also talk about uh uh how uh we can create and preserve our epistemic voices and how we can Safeguard them uh from uh threat and
attacks um and of course she she will use as an illustrative example uh the experiences of uh uh African feminists so please do join us if you can I know that we have all busy schedules but um I don't know about you but a little bit of optimism have seeped under my skin during this session thanks to our wonderful panelist so I can um now with a bit more enthusiasm wish you all happy International women's day and hope to see you in other sessions hey you were great uh um hi Mia I'm I'm I'm with M
ia and a few other people uh it's okay sorry guys uh yeah oh it's Joe yes it's Joe just shouting in the back which is why I said uh I have a full house of of lovely feminists like I'm really I'm really happy despite the all the kind of uh horrible context uh yeah I'm pretty happy to be with these lovely creatures um Mia you raised some amazing points and thank you for that especially so much and and do we know who the other people who are still in the there are few there are four people left I s
ee H uh let me see I don't know uh aha Anna is a guest yeah she does yeah just just so you know that there are other people that's mostly what I wanted to yeah uh are the people who are now leaving um yeah I just I wanted to say thank you Nila I mean it was amazing how you did this and how you pleasure linked everything together and and kept on also bringing back the questions I thought it was amazing Nila very very impressive thank you so much uh uh I disconnected you it's broken we have a fami
ly like I've been no thank you for raising those uh amazing question I like I like I like so much how you flipped it on to kind of to underline the power that we have as a community rather than the power that Wy has over us um and Joe is uh to be thanked for solving and working with solve it we just had a bunch of work rounds and Carl really helped as well we have a the link still the we we have a you told me to refresh and I said I've refreshed and it's still wrong we we have a new IT person uh
assigned to work on GOP and uh that person has has it's useless I wanted to say something yes no I but yes it's a good summary so they have been making so many mistakes that it's not worth it they're just creating more work than uh you know Solutions and this is the second time that uh uh I'm massive you know up like this happened on a kind of big event a big and important event like this um so we have to do something about it so thank you when he's a this man he can't help himself of course yo
u did so well n and I just wanted to thank you so much it was amazing and it was fantastic to see how many people were there and I mean I just I don't know I I hope that Natalia got it I felt like hiia I almost felt like saying you know you have the choice to actually leave Natalia you could leave Wy but yeah but I think I mean yeah let's see that's exactly it do you think that uh uh do you think that uh uh me saying you know stuff around agency was too provocative or was it okay no no no it was
think she didn't get it didn't get to no but I that if she felt like talking she could reach out and then if she does reach out I will I will tell her if you keep on working for them it will look like you are also aligned with them and you really need to think about the possibilities you have because you have agency you can leave and you can come and join us you you are part of the community if you want to be but right now you're choosing not to be and I think I will I will be a little bit blun
t if she actually contacts me but I wrote her and asked her told her that if she felt like it I would be glad to uh to talk to her so let's see fingers crossed I mean uh we will never close our doors and that's important that links to what jinia was saying being self-critical and stuff you know everyone makes mistakes and everyone can grow and we can create that yeah we can kind of uh uh yeah create space for that but uh I was really glad you said that thing about choices and what we can do on a
daily basis uh because it served me like as a really good and neat springboard to say stuff about agency um so I hope she doesn't feel under attack but it was important for us to say it uh yes and I also think I what I need to tell her is that it's it's nice that she comes around and she says what she says but as long as she does what she do what she's doing actually she's comped yes so and and and again back to the whole point we started with about critique and asking the difficult questions s
he needs to I mean if she wants to call herself a supporter and a feminist researcher and critical la la la as she did today again which she also did in the AE meetings then she needs to start doing the work she cannot claim those words to us and then expect us to believe it until we see it so there is something with you know Hy hypocrisy and there is she can't be she can't be sitting on two chairs uh so you know it's impossible you just have to you have to make a make a choice I and it's okay i
f it's going to take her a little bit longer but she she has to do it precisely we we are not closing uh uh we are not closing our door sorry I have like tons of messages okay I I also need to go but I thank you so much for organizing n and thanks for everything these past weeks to all of you the same the same um ABS fantas that this is the only thing that kept me going you know the kind of this uh energy that that um we found between us um and we created between us uh lovely to see you join lat
er if you can um I will I have a meeting now where I'm the chair and it's going to take two and a half hours so I will see if I can make it back C

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